"It is very simple," he hastened to explain. "Simplicity is, I think, the keynote of all true inspiration. An idea comes, and we are filled with amazement that we have so long ignored the obvious. Take our case. Here are we two, strongly of one mind and wanting the same thing. A perfectly feasible way of getting that thing occurs to me. Yet when I suggest this way you jump up and rush away."
"I haven't rushed yet."
"No. But you were going to. And all because you cannot be logical. No woman can."
His listener brushed this away with a gesture of impatience.
"I can prove it," went on the wily one. "You object to marriage, yet you covet the freedom marriage gives. Now what is the logical result of that? The logical result is fear—fear that some day you may want freedom so badly that you will marry in order to get it."
"It is not—I won't."
"I knew you would not admit it. But it is true all the same. The other night when you said 'marriage is hideous,' I saw fear in your eyes. There is fear in your eyes now."
The girl dropped her eyes and raised them again instantly. Her slanting eyebrows frowned.
"Nevertheless," she said, "I shall not marry."
"But you will, as an honest person, admit the other part of the proposition—that you want something at least of what marriage can give?"